Kathy Toppins

EDMOND — An idea for a handmade Christmas present for parents turned into a thriving Edmond business with just under $350,000 in total sales last year, mostly Christmas sales. Letter Your Legacy sells framed names, using small photographs representing letters of the alphabet. Customers choose from a variety of letters, beveled mats and frames.

In addition to purchasing the framed names for Christmas, customers from ages 12 to 80 have personally designed framed names to give as housewarming, wedding and new baby gifts. Since the business started in November 2007, said owner Adam Teague, the family has sold 5,000 framed names.

Adam and Stacy Teague, of Tulsa, took the first letter photos on a family trip in 2007 to Breckenridge, Colo. They used the photos to form the letters of their family name and custom-framed the art as a gift for their parents. The gift was a hit.

Since that time, they have expanded their letter collection with photographs taken in other states, Mexico, Europe and most recently, Israel. Last summer, seven family members took a trip to Israel, where the Teagues photographed an entire collection of new letters.

Adam Teague, an entrepreneur at heart, thought the framed names would sell online, but he needed to reduce their costs through wholesale framing, explained his sister, Jennifer Adel, of Edmond. Adel handles marketing and sales for the family business.

While in high school, Adel’s husband had worked part-time at a frame shop. Framing connections referred the family to Jeff Green at Red River Frames. Initially the Teagues, then living in Texas, bought stacks of raw molding from Green and painted it on their apartment balcony.

Before the holidays began in 2008, the couple decided that painting and assembling the raw molding had become too large a job. They turned over all the production and shipping to Red River Frames, 307 Wimbledon Road, where Green’s son, Kyle Green, works full-time in production.

Most Letter Your Legacy sales are online. “A lot of our online sales are to customers on the East Coast. We think it’s because of the Oklahoma value,” Adel said.

The company sells at six trade shows throughout the year and mall kiosks during the holidays. The Paper Lion, 3218 S. Boulevard, as well as a few other stores in Oklahoma and Texas, also sell their artwork.

“During the holidays,” Adel said, “we produce as many pieces in one day as we produce in a week over the rest of the year.” The business sold 600 framed letter designs just at Penn Square Mall between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2008, Adel reported.

This year, during the holidays, Adel and mostly family members will sell their products at a kiosk at Penn Square Mall while grandparents and a cousin are running a kiosk at a Wichita mall.

“Letter Your Legacy used to be one of my smallest customers. Now, it’s by far the largest,” Green said. During December, Green said, Red River Frames makes and ships the art two days after it’s ordered, without charging for rush shipping. The rest of the year, they ship on Mondays.

The family has Web sites for two companies, Letter Your Legacy and Letter Keepsakes. More than 50 percent of the orders continue to be for the smaller artwork, usually in black frames, ordered through Letter Your Legacy. Green said he thinks most customers find the smaller size fits in more places. Letter Keepsakes offers a larger product, more intricate frames and sepia photographs.

Adam Teague continues to handle the web operation and financial end of the business from Tulsa. Stacy Teague, also in Tulsa, continues to take the photographs and serve as the artistic designer. “Adam has turned most of the day-to-day operations over to me,” Adel said, “so he can work on starting other businesses.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION, visit www.letteryourlegacy.com and www.letterkeepsakes.com.